Stained
by Jadis31
Summary: AU - A little exploration of what might have happened had Remus found Sirius in PoA.. warnings are in order, kiddies. this is neither happy nor cute.


Stained  
  
God, Sirius, I hate nights like this. I don't think I could have taken another minute at the feast. Even the smell of food was turning my stomach. You can't imagine how horrible the wolfsbane potion is. Its aftertaste lingers all day no matter what you do, like something has died in the back of your throat. You taste it every time you exhale, a vague flavor of rot rising from your throat. But I guess you know all this already, after all of my bitching last month.  
  
Did I even manage to get two bites of food down tonight? I doubt it, and I know you weren't counting. I don't know which was worse for my appetite, Severus's potion or his staring at me all night.  
  
He thinks I'm helping you. He *knows* it. What a fucking joke he can be. I had hoped that he would have changed since we were sixteen, but he hasn't. He's still as bitter and cynical as ever, maybe even more so, but I think he's just learned to hide it sometimes. He watches me all the time, waiting for me to do something, anything that he can call proof that I am helping you and denounce me to Dumbledore. But I suppose you know exactly what that's like. No matter how fucked up you are now, you can't not remember years of Snape trying to get us thrown out of here. Like I said, he really hasn't changed. He still hates you.  
  
I spent the whole meal talking with Flitwick. All I could do was smile and nod and try not to retch in font of the whole school. I didn't have the will to send Severus off. I can usually manage it, stare back at him for a bit and make him back down. I would like to think that I intimidate him when I do that, but I really doubt that's the case. I think it has more to do with his not wanting people to think that we're staring at one another. Ahhh, the glories of homophobia, who would have guessed how handy it could be?  
  
At least all of that is over for tonight. I'm going to bed, love. I may even sleep the night through for once. Yeah, I doubt it, too. I'll be back up in a few hours, once everyone else is asleep, and go look for you again. Do you think you'll be in the Forest tonight? Or the Shack? I think you would like a walk around the lake before it gets too cold to enjoy it. That's where I'll start tonight.  
  
But not until after midnight. Can't have Severus seeing me on my way out of the school after hours again, now can we? When he saw me going into the shack a few weeks ago he assumed I was on my way to meet you. He honestly believes that nothing has changed between you and me. He thinks that I'm still the sixteen year old who would do anything for you, who would forgive you anything. He has no idea who I am. He has no idea what I am capable of.  
  
I don't believe anyone was more horrified by your escape than I was. Having you, the real you, back in my life, even as just an elusive menace around the school, was enough to upset the delicate balance of imagination and reality that has kept me together for so long. I was happy when you were gone. As happy as a werewolf without his mate can be.  
  
It took me years to learn to live without you. I didn't want you back. I had worked too hard to forget where you were. To pretend you were dead, not in jail, not a murderer, just gone. The last thing I wanted was to be reminded that you were still alive.  
  
After you left -- that is how I always think of it, not "after you killed all of the people I loved" or even "after you were thrown in Azkaban," but "after you left," like you were on vacation-- anyway, after you left, I lost my mind.  
  
I don't know how long it lasted, a few months, a year or three; I've never really figured it, exactly. I never wanted to. I was an animal, and animals don't have time. I lived in my own filth, I didn't shave, wash, or do anything at all. I ate enough to survive, drank when I was thirsty, and I changed with the moon. I didn't talk to anyone. I didn't feel anything. I didn't think. I just existed without words or a thought or an emotion. If there had been anyone there to see me, they would have had me institutionalized, but since everyone who cared about me was gone, I guess there was never any danger of that happening. Thanks to you. Who would've come and seen me?  
  
I have never read any reports on a werewolf's reaction to betrayal or abandonment by his mate. I don't even know if it's ever happened before. So I am willing to assume, for lack of any contrary evidence, that this reaction was normal. It may not be true, but we don't need to know that.  
  
Here comes Minerva, she looks worried. You remember, Sear, the way her forehead shrivels up and her widow's peak comes down, almost meeting her eyebrows? Yeah, that look. It never bodes well.  
  
"Follow me. Something's happened in Gryffindor." This is bad, whatever it is. She never orders us like students. Please, Sirius, whatever it is, don't let it involve you.  
  
All of the students are still in the hall, milling about and talking too quietly for childern. But Harry's here, and he's safe. Not that I think that was a great concern of yours.  
  
The portrait of the Fat Lady is shredded. Please let it be a Weasley joke gone wrong. Please, Sirius, not tonight.  
  
No, look at the twins, they're not even smirking a little. They had nothing to do with it.  
  
What did Peeves just say? I thought I heard your name. I suppose I did; that would explain Severus's glare.  
  
I have to find you. Now, tonight, there is no other way, is there? Might as well get a good start while Severus takes his house to the Great Hall. Maybe I'll have enough time to find you before he finds me. Damn, Sear, I had really wanted to get some sleep before I had to deal with you--the real you, that is.  
  
That is how I always think of him, "the real you." I'm not so far gone that I've confused that. After I recovered a bit from the shock of the deaths and your leaving, once I stopped simply existing, started thinking again, I started talking to you.  
  
At first it was out loud, very loud. I would talk and scream and cry myself hoarse every day. I would yell at you for hours for what you'd done. I would beg you to explain why or to undo it. After a while of that, a few months I think, but I can't be sure, I gave up. I knew that you weren't there and that you couldn't answer.  
  
I stopped asking questions, but I didn't stop talking. I would tell you everything I did, everything I thought. As though you were there and just couldn't see what was happening. I would describe the clouds to you and the taste of the food I was eating and what I dreamed about, I would tell you every thing I did, step by step. I couldn't just tell you that I cut my hair, I had to tell you about how long it was and the scissors I had chosen and every snip I took off. I couldn't let you miss any of it. Anything that came into my head, I shared with you. Things I never would have admitted when we were lovers, I needed to tell you once you couldn't hear.  
  
I talked to you as though you were dead. You had died and your spirit was still with me, that was why you couldn't answer me. You were dead, but that didn't mean I should stop talking to you. As long as your spirit was still there, I wasn't alone. I wasn't abandoned.  
  
Eventually, I stopped talking out loud. That made it all seem more normal. I was just thinking about my lost love. People do that all the time. It was just a part of grieving.  
  
But I knew your weren't really dead, love. I knew that your spirit was still at home in your flesh and not following or looking over me. If you were dead, I would be, too. You know that don't you? Werewolves never outlive their mates by more than a few days. You probably don't know. You never liked to talk about the curse, or the bond. That's all right.  
  
The thing is, Sirius, no one is clear on how those werewolves die. The Werewolf Registry's "Guide to Controlling Your Lycanthropy" says that they become unresponsive, refuse to eat or drink, and just wither away. The "Report on the Behavior of Werewolves and Other Part-Humans" claims that their hearts just stop. I can imagine that happening. My heart would be unable to go on with out you. I don't think it's strong enough on its own. Or maybe it would just be unwilling to. I will admit that I am partial to that theory. The romanticism of it appeals to me a bit. But I don't believe that that is how I will die.  
  
You see, there are other reports, not as widely published in Britain--I suppose they were too sensationalist for the Ministry to endorse--that talk about werewolves who go insane when their mates die. Not just falling over dead of a broken heart, but tearing themselves apart, ripping and biting at their own flesh, tearing out their hair and eyes. They don't stop until they are unconscious from blood loss. In the only case I've ever seen where the werewolf was treated and revived, as soon as she was awake again she began tearing at herself with all of strength she could muster. They managed to keep her alive for five days. But in the end she won, broke through the restraints and ripped both of her wrists open. They didn't even bother trying to put her back together. They knew there was nothing they would be able to do to make her want to live.  
  
I think that is likely the way I will go. Madness isn't hard for me to imagine. Hell, I've been talking to myself for years. I would say that my sanity is already a little shaky, wouldn't you?  
  
But don't worry, not that I really imagine you would, but I'm not afraid of death. Madness and death are just words; they don't mean anything, not to me. I know pain, and I know love. Them, I fear. Death and madness would just be the end of them, the end of all of it. It's not that I look forward to death, I just can't fear it. Not since I know how hard it can be being alive. I imagine that you know what I mean. I don't like to think about what you must have gone through in There, but I am sure that you know things worse than death. Does that bring us closer together? Is that an understanding deep enough to hold us together? If we could have shared something like that before, would it have been enough to keep you? But how could we have shared that? It makes no sense, I know. My mind is wandering back in on itself. Sometimes, when you're close, it starts to do that. Is it you? Is your madness making that happen? Are we still so connected that you can affect me that strongly? Are we closer now than we were?  
  
Where are you? I know you're close, I can feel it like fingers dancing on the back of my neck. I know you can feel it, too. You know I'm here, and you know I'm looking for you. You know I have to kill you.  
  
You see it, don't you? Or maybe you don't. Maybe it's not the same for the mate as it is for the wolf. We never really talked about what it meant to be bonded. You liked to pretend that we were just like any other couple, that we loved each other and were together because we wanted to be, not because we couldn't leave. I let you pretend, and I played along with you. And I think--or at least, I thought--it was true. I know that it was for me. I really would have stayed with you forever.  
  
But maybe it is different for you. Maybe you don't love me, maybe you can see me as your enemy, but I can't do that. No matter what you are or what you do, I can't not love you. I can't not help you. Severus is right in that. He just hasn't thought it through; he can't see where that must lead. And this is the only possible outcome, the only thing I can do for you. Do you hear what I'm saying?  
  
You're closer now, I can feel the fingers dancing all over my spine, up my scalp. I can't help but think of them as your fingers, your hands, touching me, loving me. I remember them so well. I remember all of it, the taste of you, the sounds you made. Every time I close my eyes, I see you, the way you looked in the morning--tangled in the sheet, one leg thrown over me, trapping me in the bed as though I had any desire to leave. I loved the mornings, watching you drool and snore. You weren't pretty then, you weren't charming; you were more than that, you were unguarded, natural, flawless. When I think of you now, that's what I see. Or it is what I saw, until the real you destroyed it.  
  
Shit, I have to focus. I have to find you. Where the hell are you?  
  
Shit. I know I've been down this hall at least twice. I don't even know what part of the castle I'm in anymore. But I know you're closer, and that's the only thing that matters.  
  
But Severus can't be far behind. He can't find you. There's nothing he would love more than to be the one to hand you over to the Dementors, to see you broken and bleeding as they tore your soul from you.  
  
Where the fuck are you?  
  
I can't let that happen, I can't let them get you. If I find you, I will kill you, but if they find you they won't. Oh, love, they'll destroy you, leave you a mindless, heartless creature, slowly decaying in agony.  
  
I won't let that happen. Where are you? We don't have much time before they're here and we're both doomed.  
  
Shit. I'm getting all turned around, but you're close, so, so close. I can feel you through my whole body, like I'm made up of your dancing fingers. The hair on my arms is standing up now, like you are a giant power source, or like you are drawing me toward you, bit by bit. You are closer than you've been in years. Can you feel me getting hard? Are you?  
  
We have to hurry, love. Don't you see how important...  
  
You've found me.  
  
You look like the ghost I've pretended you were for so many years. A spirit, wild, and possessed, without a trace of humanity – primal, powerful, and mad. Madder than even I am.  
  
It's your eyes. They're wild, so dark and crazed, moving, constantly moving like the hunted animal you have become. There's no recognition there, no love.  
  
What did I expect? Do you even know me?  
  
"Remus."  
  
God, your voice is rough, I don't know if it's from disuse or misuse. It hurts to hear it break over the syllables of my name. It's quiet and raw. It's nothing like the way I remember it, the way I've imagined it for so long. It breaks the illusion a little bit more.  
  
It hurts to have you this close; my skin is on fire, and every inch of it feels like an electric current is running through me, through me to you. I'm almost painfully hard. I can feel you moving closer, I can feel the distance between us vanishing, and it's all I can do not to run forward, not to touch you. I can feel my resolve disappearing with every step you take. I can't let that happen.  
  
You have to stop. I can't stop you. I can't back away. Oh, Sear, I can feel your presence all around me, I'm being consumed by it, by you. If I let you too close, I won't be able to finish this, I'll lose control, I won't be able to kill you, I won't be able to save you.  
  
Can you hear me? You've stopped. Is it because you know I need you to? Can you hear what I'm thinking? Do you understand why I have to do this? You know that I love you.  
  
"Remus, I'm sorry."  
  
So am I, love  
  
I can hear someone coming.  
  
"Avada Kedavra."  
  
****  
  
just so you all know what this one was born from, as though you couldn't guess..  
  
1) I have read too many stories where Sirius and Remus meet and shag happily during PoA.  
  
2) My endless need to try and explain why the hell Remus didn't tell anyone about Padfoot. The excuse he gives is CRAP.  
  
3) Just my own musings on murder as an act of love. That you could love someone enough and have your options so limited that it seems the best thing you can do for them is to kill them.  
  
4)I had to fuck with the happy-sappy mating for life idea. 


End file.
